seanius.net/ blog/ 2008/ 09/   home theatre, part two

(see also: part one)

so the first priority was to get a new TV. i spent basically an entire weekend reading reviews, learning tech terminology, price searching, talking with friends, comparing specs, etc, and ended up with three main contenders:

they each have their strengths and weaknesses. the pioneer had amazing black levels and picture quality, but i was concerned that plasma is kinda on the way out, and some of my typical use cases would be better suited for and lcd (gaming, computer screen / htpc usage). also, the plasma will probably have a shorter lifespan and higher power consumption. the two lcd's were by most review standards the best 40" lcd's on the market. The sony has excellent picture quality for film/cinema and a really nice sound system built in. The samsung has a better 100Hz scanning tech built-in (meaning better fast-action scenes, sports footage, etc), but the sound system was of somewhat less quality.

i saw all three, and quickly reduced to the two lcd's after reconsidering my use cases and other concerns. the 100Hz scanning in the samsung quickly won me over. they had two systems side-by-side in a nearby store and the sony came off as looking a bit more pixellated/jaggy when a lot of noise was going on. playing around with the settings didn't seem to help much either. it also helped that the samsung was about 2000 SEK cheaper :) i couldn't tell the difference picture wise, and i really didn't worry too much about sound-related issues since i will probably "invest further" in the future.

actually getting the TV ended up being somewhat difficult, largely due to the unfortunate timing of some unknown malefactor in florida deciding that they also wanted about $allmymoney worth of stuff and conjured up my card's digits to help them with the process. some creative social engineering got me a name and some of the items acquired, but ultimately it was a matter of taking a couple half-days flex and going to the bank, filling out some paperwork, and waiting about a week to get my money back.

and then i had to wait for my new card to spend the money...

and then the TV was sold out and i had to wait another week...

and then the driver was sick and couldn't deliver it...

but finally it arrived, and the old tv was retired to the basement.

samsung le40a656

nice tv, but the setup still leaves a little something to be desired :)